When You're Considered a Success & Who Defines It

Early Support Systems

In the beginning it's fairly easy to get people on board to support you on your journey of weight loss. Mostly everyone who loves us wants us to be healthier, however there comes a point in time where you have to be your own support system.

Pre-op there are numerous support groups that discuss food, nutrition, exercise, clothing, lifestyle modifications, etc.  And family and friends are excited to see the incredible shrinking you.  They don't seem to mind that you're not eating like you used to as the pounds fall off of you.  But now you've reached that weight on the scale where you're just on the chubby side, very close to normal or even achieved a healthy bmi.  I noticed the more weight I lost, the fewer cheerleaders I had.  It reached a point where I was a size 16 in clothes where people just thought of me as average in size. Even my srugeons considered me a success.  However at this point I still didn't feel like one, and slowly my cheerleaders slipped away.

A Medical Success

The medical community has their own definitions of so many terms.  What they may consider a success may not align with your own personal definition of success.  When my surgeon considered me a success early on I questioned him.  Medically I was a success story, although I wouldn't have personally considered myself one.

Weight loss surgery is considered a success if a person loses 50%  or more of their excess body weight.  So at my highest weight of 350 pounds, losing 100 pounds would have been considered a success.  So at 5'5" tall and 250 pound I would have been a walking success story for bariatric surgery?   The American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) cited that 90 % of patients are able to keep off a 50% loss.

At 250 pounds I was still fat, with a BMI of 41.6, technically Class 3 obese.  Yes still in class 3.  I hardly consider that a success.  But that's the standard measure of that surgeons go by.    So how did I get myself to a normal BMI of under 25?  I took bariatric surgery for what it was, a tool.  Surgery alone wasn't going to burn off years and over 200 pounds of excess body weight.  I dramatically changed my whole entire lifestyle and became my own cheerleader.

Lifestyle Modifications

So my journey from 250 pounds down another 100+ pounds to a normal BMI wasn't even expected by my surgeon.  That part was done through nutrition and exercise.  Along the way there were many challenges and still are.  There are still goals I want to achieve for myself.  It's no longer about being a medical success but about being a personal success.

Lifestyle modification is no easy task, even with a helpful support system.  Eventually you have to be the one to motivate yourself by becoming your own personal cheerleader.  If that motivation doesn't come from inside yourself chances are you aren't going to make it past being a medical success.

My sedentary lifestyle had changed to a very active one.  I lost interest in going out to eat with friends and socializing over food.  I was more interested in spending time doing an activity.  Spending hours eating was a behavior that wasn't going to help me meet my goals.

Some of my friends weren't interested in a more active lifestyle, so I saw them less and less over time.  I made new friends who were interested in a healthier lifestyle.  I enjoyed more activities and sports with my own children.  My sons became my work out buddies.  For me it was a win win situation.  Early on we cut out trips to Mc Donalds.  I told the boys, "Mc Donalds is dead!"  They took it to heart and we stopped going there.  Years later my boys don't even think about going there.  I have 3 sons who value their health and physically push themselves.  They're constantly inspiring me to be healthier and work harder.

A benefit of changing to a healthier lifestyle is that my kids are growing up around it.  When I first had surgery they were 3, 6 and 7 years old. They've had the benefit of seeing me change my eating patterns,  having a balanced diet, very limited junk food and realizing that if you set your mind to it you can reach your goals.  And at 12, 15 and 16 years old my sons are amazing people.  Each with their own physical and intellectual goals in life.  They're all out there pursuing them and have such internal motivation that it pushes me to do more.    

Welcome to life in a brand new body.  From this point on it's all about maintaining a healthy weight and making choices.  Yes, now it's a choice of eating, exercising and staying healthy.  Maintaining the weight is a balancing act that many people don't think about.  The statistics for weight regain following weight loss surgery are not all that positive.  People may lapse into poor eating habits at their goal weight, and a lapse may turn into a relapse.  The real work is done here, goals are set, revisited and revised.

The Early Stages After Surgery: What are you going to eat? Why are you going to eat it?

The two big questions with weight loss and changing your lifestyle come into play:  What are you going to eat?  Why are you going to eat it?

(A very basic summary of dietary changes that happen in the few few months following surgery)

And these questions at first may seem easy.  Support groups prepare you with great meal plans for the first month.  Everyone discusses their favorite brand of protein shake, protein jello recipes, etc.  Protein is stressed as it's a building block of healing.  You learn read nutritional labels to make sure you get in that protein. It's so heavily stressed you feel like you're turning into a body builder with the amount you're buying.

Yes I love my protein mixed with a coffee concentrate, that's a growler of concentrated coffee from Revolution Coffee Roasters.  I love it with two scoops of EAS Lean 15, which was recently discontinued so I'll be finding a new powder that I like soon enough.  That's one of the things about protein powder, companies are always changing their product lines.  Initially I love, love loved Designer Whey, however the product was discontinued.  When you've been supplementing with protein shakes for 9 years these things happen and you learn to take it in stride. There's the scavenger hunt to find a new shake you find palatable, nutritious and easily digestable.  The great members at Bariatric Pal have composed a list of companies offering free, discounted or inespensive samples of their protein powder so you don't have to commit to a whole pound or two of something that isn't going to work for you.

The Initial Post Op Stages, Liquid First My Dears

And in the beginning people follow the plan, a meal every 4-6 hours, get in X grams of protein a day, progress through the liquid stage, the mushy stage, the soft food stage and finally the solid stage.  Those are the easy days as the pounds fall off and your hunger is completely gone.  It's amazing, wonderful and no one around you seems to mind that your lifestyle has completely changed as they're seeing the incredible shrinking you.  You're going to your support group, have a good support system of friends and family who are hopefully happy you're getting healthy.  And you're following the plan of your whole bariatric team most of the time.  And soon enough you're done with the liquid stage and get to move onto the purees.

Purees

You move into the mushy/purred stage.  The food processor is your new best friend, of course you buy a small one because you're only going to be eating a very very small amount, at most 1/4 cup of a baby food consistency of whatever protein you puree.  And happily you slowly eat it.  For me this stage came around Thanksgiving in 2007.  I was so very happy to have mashed potatoes with yogurt.

Soft Foods

On soft foods you get to cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, scrambled eggs or egg whites, fish, beans that you don't have to puree.  You're glad to be able to chew food again.  But at this point you still have to supplement with those protein shakes as it's hard to get in enough protein.  My nutritionist recommended 60 grams of protein per day, with a maximum of 30 grams consumed in at once.  It was difficult to get this in so I still supplemented with a protein shake once a day.

Solids

Then the solid foods, slowly, slowly you cut your meat, chicken, pork, duck, mammal protein into tiny pieces about the size of a single dice.  And you chew chew chew until you break apart all those bonds between the proteins so that your stomach will better be able to accept that hunk of meat.  Then it hits your stomach. It sits there.  For some digestion is easy, others it's a nightmare.  I started to opt for a vegetarian diet around bariatric surgeries and very different experiences digesting food.  So everyone varies here and what may digest easily for one person may not for the other.  All surgeries and all stomachs after surgery are not the same.  And any complications along the way have to be taken into account.  It's this point when you begin to realize the exactly how much you have to commit to this new lifestyle.
this time.  

So you're finally though the initial process and eating normal food again, however with a new mindset.  And that's when things start to get complicated.   You may be closer to a normal size, now just class 1 obese or maybe even overweight.  And now, Boom! Welcome to a whole new lifestyle.  Stay tuned...